Remove Frank Oliver's Name

Frank Oliver, an MP and Edmonton Journalist from the early 1900s, carried out a legislative attack on the Papaschase Cree people who were forced off of their land and left to suffer and starve. He lobbied Ottawa for “settlers rights” and dismissed the Papaschase people as “lazy,” or, incredibly, as not “true Indians.”

He was a part of the reproduction of a petition from 1911 which was literally a grass-roots lobbying effort on the part of community leaders that said blacks weren’t suited to the terrain—they effectively lobbied the government to ban blacks coming into the country. That petition went on to Prime Minister Laurier and it did result in a ban of blacks coming in to the country.

This is not a figure Edmonton should be celebrating or commemorating.

We ask that the neighbourhood name of "Oliver" be removed and that neighbourhood renaming be left in the hands of the Papaschase First Nation.